TRIBUNAL: Court admits EU observer mission report as INEC closed Case

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) on Monday admitted as exhibit the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the final report of the European Union Election Observer Mission, which faulted the conduct and outcome of the February 25, 2023, presidential election.

The report, tendered by the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his party were admitted as exhibited by the court, despite the objection by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who are listed as respondents along with INEC in the petition challenging Tinubu’s election.

The European Union election observer mission had, in the report, claimed that there was no credibility and transparency in the way and manner the February 25, 2023, presidential election was conducted.

The report tendered through INEC’s sole witness and Director of Information Technology (IT) of the Commission, Dr Lawrence Bayode, said only 31 per cent of the presidential election result was uploaded into INEC’s results viewing portal.

In his evidence in-chief, Dr Bayode admitted that INEC has no electronic collation system and agreed that there was no electronic collation of the presidential election results.

The INEC’s witness admitted that the Presidential election results were collated manually by the electoral body’s presiding officers.

Under cross-examination by Atiku Abubakar’s lead Counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), the witness admitted that not all the presidential election results were uploaded into the INEC’s results viewing centre as of March 1, 2023, when INEC chairman, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood declared and returned Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.

Under cross-examination by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), lead Counsel to President Tinubu, the witness told the court that form EC8A formed the basis of the election results and that data and network service were required for the upload of the images of the results captured by the Biomodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine into INEC’s results viewing portal.

He further testified that images captured on BVAS, whether transmitted electronically or manually, will not affect the integrity of the election, especially when results entered into form EC8As are announced to the hearing and knowledge of party agents.

Also under cross-examination by the lead counsel to the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the witness admitted that the technical glitches experienced during the presidential election did not affect the actual scores of candidates at the election, as the results remain intact.

Fagbemi asked the witness if he was aware that, three days before the presidential election, INEC came out to say that electronic transmission of results would not be visible, the witness answered in the affirmative and his (Witness) attention was drawn to Thursday, February 23, 2023 edition of the Nigerian Tribune which carried INEC’s announcement of its inability to collate the election results electronically.

Through its counsel, the APC tendered the Tribune newspaper publication as evidence in defence of the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.

With one witness and four documents tendered, INEC closed its defence in the petition filed by the former vice president and his party against the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.

Meanwhile, Tinubu will open his case on Tuesday, June 4, to defend his victory in the February 25 presidential election.